Standards for vidiots
I started my New Year with a resolution to tighten up my resume. Opened up Microsoft Office 2000 and got the increasingly common error message and shutdown. Microsoft tells me that they no longer support this elegant suite and that I should try a free 60 day download of Office 2007. I opted for the download.
Office 2007 is a beautiful looking suite and I spent half the morning downloading templates and other features. I slapped together a new and concise resume in about an hour. Than the fun began. I wanted to convert to PDF so that I could post my resume at my personal home page . . . www.cruiserbob.com
Unfortunately, there was no "Save As" option for PDF, so I went back to Microsoft dot com to get the necessary plug in. Reviewing PDF options the name Adobe was conspicuous by it's absence. If there has been one bright light in standardization cross platforms and networks, it has been the Adobe PDF format.
It seems as though Adobe and Microsoft could not come to an agreement on a standard. This battle has been going on for sometime and one would hope that an accord should have been reached before Microsoft started peddling it's "full featured" trial version . . . which is not yet for sale. IMO it's not even ready for prime time.
The issue here is big time ownership of a standard format. In such instances the end users nearly always end up losing. Every vidiot knows that when giants battle there are unintended consequences. Look at just a few of the standards wars that we have seen in the past.
FM vs. AM
Eight track vs. audio cassette
Betamax vs. VHS
S-video vs. 3/4" video
B format vs. C format (we really lost big time on this one)
Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD
The list goes on and on with frequent forays into non-quality. For example after a decade of playing around, it is still rare to view a true HD picture on anyone's giant flat screen TV. In "The Age of Videography" that we envision, there will be an equitable sharing of technology and than we the people will be the benefactors.
There does seem to be a glimmer of hope for a combined standard in the HD-DVD - Blue-Ray battle . . . announced today in the New York Times. We heartily endorse such a compromise and hope it portends for a future of greater cooperation in Standards in "The Age of Videography".
Office 2007 is a beautiful looking suite and I spent half the morning downloading templates and other features. I slapped together a new and concise resume in about an hour. Than the fun began. I wanted to convert to PDF so that I could post my resume at my personal home page . . . www.cruiserbob.com
Unfortunately, there was no "Save As" option for PDF, so I went back to Microsoft dot com to get the necessary plug in. Reviewing PDF options the name Adobe was conspicuous by it's absence. If there has been one bright light in standardization cross platforms and networks, it has been the Adobe PDF format.
It seems as though Adobe and Microsoft could not come to an agreement on a standard. This battle has been going on for sometime and one would hope that an accord should have been reached before Microsoft started peddling it's "full featured" trial version . . . which is not yet for sale. IMO it's not even ready for prime time.
The issue here is big time ownership of a standard format. In such instances the end users nearly always end up losing. Every vidiot knows that when giants battle there are unintended consequences. Look at just a few of the standards wars that we have seen in the past.
FM vs. AM
Eight track vs. audio cassette
Betamax vs. VHS
S-video vs. 3/4" video
B format vs. C format (we really lost big time on this one)
Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD
The list goes on and on with frequent forays into non-quality. For example after a decade of playing around, it is still rare to view a true HD picture on anyone's giant flat screen TV. In "The Age of Videography" that we envision, there will be an equitable sharing of technology and than we the people will be the benefactors.
There does seem to be a glimmer of hope for a combined standard in the HD-DVD - Blue-Ray battle . . . announced today in the New York Times. We heartily endorse such a compromise and hope it portends for a future of greater cooperation in Standards in "The Age of Videography".
Labels: Microsoft Adobe PDF standards standardization format wars Blu-Ray HD-DVD
posted by Vid Opiná at
17:23
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